If you compare how dramatic content is edited in game cutscenes, or even interactive dramas such as “Heavy Rain” with TV and film, you’ll notice some obvious differences. Of course there are differences – different media, right?
Well visual story-telling is visual story-telling, and most of the same rules apply equally to game and film alike, when it comes to dramatic content.
TV or FILM?
Whereas the mise-en-scene and the world architecture in games lends itself to comparisons with film, the dramatic content has more parallels with high turnover TV serials. Think of Law & Order, 24, Star Trek for example.
Both high turnover TV and capture based Dramatic Content (DC) cannot afford to waste time, but for rather different reasons; TV because the schedule is so tight and budgets are limited, and game because each second of capture is expensive, both in terms of initial shoot and post animation days. You could argue this applies to film, too, but making things look good on the big screen normally demands a different pace.
Cutscenes serve a variety of purposes, but up there at the top is narrative exposition; telling the player what they need to know to achieve the next goal, with an attendant effort to make dramatic sense of this. Up there on the list, too, is the desire to make the player feel an attachment to the character, by adding some character depth.
In TV around 30% of any scene is a reaction shot. Not a shot on what’s being said, but the reaction to what’s being said. That’s where a large part of the character’s emotional story lies. This is particularly true in high turnover TV, because there is little room for personal confessions, as the exposition takes precedence. (Sometimes voice-overs are used instead to provide an outlet for the lead characters thoughts and feelings)
In games, such high quality close ups of facial behaviours might seem financially indulgent, and un-necessarily time consuming. Alternatively, in bigger budgets, treating the collection of all the material for the scene like a film, might seem more ‘faithful’.
This results in either hugely expensive production, for a ‘high quality’ cutscene, or corner cutting, and ‘alternative’ editing, for an adequate exposition scene that lacks character. (see below Halo:Reach closing scene 1:04onwards…)
)
Next time you watch a cutscene, count how many times the ‘camera’ reveals the reactions of the listener. Compare this to how many times you see an obscured face, or the back of someone’s head as they watch the person talking? How about the number of times a scene cuts to a ‘wide shot’ when you’d rather see the person’s face to see what they’re thinking? Or perhaps you’re given that ‘look’, but its you that ‘gives’ an emotion to the character’s stony inexpressive face. I’ve seen this in a whole range of games from small budget, to Red Dead Redemption and Mafia II.
Perhaps animators are afraid of showing the stitches, which is always a risk with attention focussed on an expressive behaviour. Its as if concentrating on the talking character is the more forgiving option.
What we’re missing…
But by missing out on reactions, we’re missing out on the opportunity to suggest another dramatic world, that exists alongside and underneath the text, complementing and filling out the dramatic narrative. Surely there’s got to be another way to achieve this without needing the budget of a small country, or the skills of a MENSA magician.
As always the answer lies in convergence – an answer that can be challenging to accept if you’re attached to a certain way of doing things. On Heavy Rain, I was both slightly worried, and slightly amazed at the creation of “kits”. It was the first discomfort of being in a new media; having to accept the idea that things you’ve already ‘shot’ can be re-used time and again in different contexts. This was something that eventually caught my imagination and turned things upside down: it led me to create the LT Behaviour Library.
I’m heading to Game Connection shortly, where I’ll offer fresh perspective consultancy from experts that work in both game and traditional media; I’ll offer an opportunity to create revolutionary behaviour libraries that can provide all those reaction shots suited to the game. I’m offering the chance to partner up and be ahead of the game.
All I need now, is some luck, and some good people who can see the benefits of accepting the challenge of convergence. (Location 65 FYI)
That, and some toothpaste .
P
Posted: November 15, 2010 at 3:35 pm
2 Responses to “WHAT’S MISSING FROM GAME CUTSCENES?”
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Corey Motley and Judy Durbin, Pascal Langdale. Pascal Langdale said: Latest blog: the night before Game Connection.. http://bit.ly/cUmBBS Subject: "What's missing from game cutscenes?" Hope you enjoy. [...]
15 Nov 2010 at 8:01 pm PST
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Significant glance. Wide pan. Zoom in after a brief exposition shot. Metallic clanks. *Cue Law and Order theme*
Robert Anderson
16 Nov 2010 at 9:07 am PST
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One of the earliest tests of a close up in film proved that it wasn’t so much the actual emotion on the face of the person in the close up but the emotional guidance that the film maker gave to the shots leading up to the close up.
The test I speak of was, I believe, done by the Russian film maker Eisenstein.
There was a single close up of the face of an old man. The shot was used several times within a sequence but was the exact same emotionless shot each time. This shot was intercut between sequences showing a bay crying, a woman in a bath tub and (if memory serves) battles or the image of someone dead.
The test audience reacted to the closeup quite differently each time. They felt they saw sorrow, lust, anger or sadness in the old mans face.
While the close up is powerful, it’s power is directly attached to what the last thing was that the audience was aware of.
I think this fundamental law of film language has been largely lost in the world of TV in the last decade or so. Mostly due to the shows that you mention. Sad.
We are linear beasts and are always reacting to what we see based on what we know and will go out of our way to make what we see feel logical. Hence the style of editing that exists in North America today. Namely continuity editing or the invisible edit.
Being a lover of editing (and a guy making a living doing just that) I cringe when there is bad cutting in either TV, film or games and get really excited when there is good and thoughtful use of editing.
Dominic Cianciolo
16 Nov 2010 at 10:42 am PST
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Insightful post.
Being married to a TV writer and thus having insight into that business when I moved from directing narrative media to directing game cinematics, I saw the parallels immediately once I started working in this industry. It was clear that having a TV-mindset when approaching the writing and direction and cinematics would prove very helpful.
You also mention the importance of reactions: all too important, and all too often underappreciated. In my current project, I’ve focused a great deal of attention on not only a) making sure character reactions are integral part of the edit to provide scene context and insight into characters’ emotions and b) making sure we have the necessary level of quality in our facial animation to make those reactions work. Quality facial animation (and attendant use of it in reactions) are key elements to producing an emotional connection with the player (viewer) and the characters.
@Robert: Good point on the Eisenstein test. Excellent point!
Altug Isigan
16 Nov 2010 at 12:32 pm PST
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Just a little correction: It was Kuleshov, not Eisenstein who made those tests. But both experimented with the meaning that results from a “clash” of otherwise unrelated shots in the viewers mind. They are labelled as “Constructivists” for they consider any shot as “raw material” that can be used to create a filmic reality, one that has no longer anything to do with the “reality” captured on celluloid.
In video games, I think it makes an important difference to consider the “double sense” of animated images. There is no “reality” at all in those images, they are all “invented” (hand-drawn or drawn based on algorithms). Which could mean even more freedom in constructing ludic experiences.
Robert Anderson
16 Nov 2010 at 1:44 pm PST
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Good one! Thanks for clarifying. My memory is bad.
Brad Borne
16 Nov 2010 at 6:48 pm PST
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This is something I think about all the time. In games, I want to see characters FEEL, I don’t want narrative exposition, I want emotional exposition. I want gravity to the situations and context to the actions.
Way to go ‘realistic graphics’ and the uncanny valley for making that super hard and expensive. Uncharted 2′s probably the closest to getting this right, but the facial animation is still a little off (and the game is much more stylized than most ‘hardcore’ gamers realize, not to mention all of the facial animation is done by hand, not exactly cheap).
Brutal Legend is one of the only games that I’ve seen get character expression right. I guess we’ll see how LA Noir does, the faces look really good, but not quite there, still.
It doesn’t help that, in general, video game plot, storytelling, and voice acting are far worse than even lower budget TV shows’.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Corey Motley and Judy Durbin, Pascal Langdale. Pascal Langdale said: Latest blog: the night before Game Connection.. http://bit.ly/cUmBBS Subject: "What's missing from game cutscenes?" Hope you enjoy. [...]
An adapted version of this post was also posted up on Gamasutra, and chose as a featured blog. Its generated a few insightful and considered comments.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PascalLangdale/20101115/6440/Whats_missing_from_cutscenes.php
Here’s a cut and paste of the responses so far:
Comments
Evan Moore
15 Nov 2010 at 8:01 pm PST
profile image
Significant glance. Wide pan. Zoom in after a brief exposition shot. Metallic clanks. *Cue Law and Order theme*
Robert Anderson
16 Nov 2010 at 9:07 am PST
profile image
One of the earliest tests of a close up in film proved that it wasn’t so much the actual emotion on the face of the person in the close up but the emotional guidance that the film maker gave to the shots leading up to the close up.
The test I speak of was, I believe, done by the Russian film maker Eisenstein.
There was a single close up of the face of an old man. The shot was used several times within a sequence but was the exact same emotionless shot each time. This shot was intercut between sequences showing a bay crying, a woman in a bath tub and (if memory serves) battles or the image of someone dead.
The test audience reacted to the closeup quite differently each time. They felt they saw sorrow, lust, anger or sadness in the old mans face.
While the close up is powerful, it’s power is directly attached to what the last thing was that the audience was aware of.
I think this fundamental law of film language has been largely lost in the world of TV in the last decade or so. Mostly due to the shows that you mention. Sad.
We are linear beasts and are always reacting to what we see based on what we know and will go out of our way to make what we see feel logical. Hence the style of editing that exists in North America today. Namely continuity editing or the invisible edit.
Being a lover of editing (and a guy making a living doing just that) I cringe when there is bad cutting in either TV, film or games and get really excited when there is good and thoughtful use of editing.
Dominic Cianciolo
16 Nov 2010 at 10:42 am PST
profile image
Insightful post.
Being married to a TV writer and thus having insight into that business when I moved from directing narrative media to directing game cinematics, I saw the parallels immediately once I started working in this industry. It was clear that having a TV-mindset when approaching the writing and direction and cinematics would prove very helpful.
You also mention the importance of reactions: all too important, and all too often underappreciated. In my current project, I’ve focused a great deal of attention on not only a) making sure character reactions are integral part of the edit to provide scene context and insight into characters’ emotions and b) making sure we have the necessary level of quality in our facial animation to make those reactions work. Quality facial animation (and attendant use of it in reactions) are key elements to producing an emotional connection with the player (viewer) and the characters.
@Robert: Good point on the Eisenstein test. Excellent point!
Altug Isigan
16 Nov 2010 at 12:32 pm PST
profile image
Just a little correction: It was Kuleshov, not Eisenstein who made those tests. But both experimented with the meaning that results from a “clash” of otherwise unrelated shots in the viewers mind. They are labelled as “Constructivists” for they consider any shot as “raw material” that can be used to create a filmic reality, one that has no longer anything to do with the “reality” captured on celluloid.
In video games, I think it makes an important difference to consider the “double sense” of animated images. There is no “reality” at all in those images, they are all “invented” (hand-drawn or drawn based on algorithms). Which could mean even more freedom in constructing ludic experiences.
Robert Anderson
16 Nov 2010 at 1:44 pm PST
profile image
Good one! Thanks for clarifying. My memory is bad.
Brad Borne
16 Nov 2010 at 6:48 pm PST
profile image
This is something I think about all the time. In games, I want to see characters FEEL, I don’t want narrative exposition, I want emotional exposition. I want gravity to the situations and context to the actions.
Way to go ‘realistic graphics’ and the uncanny valley for making that super hard and expensive. Uncharted 2′s probably the closest to getting this right, but the facial animation is still a little off (and the game is much more stylized than most ‘hardcore’ gamers realize, not to mention all of the facial animation is done by hand, not exactly cheap).
Brutal Legend is one of the only games that I’ve seen get character expression right. I guess we’ll see how LA Noir does, the faces look really good, but not quite there, still.
It doesn’t help that, in general, video game plot, storytelling, and voice acting are far worse than even lower budget TV shows’.